Importance Of Water In The Sacrament Of Baptism

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4 Water in the sacrament of baptism

All God’s creations have a natural capacity to be used by God to be an instrument of grace. However, not all are chosen by God. Some of these created things are chosen by God to be an instrument of grace. Water has a natural capacity to be an instrument for cleansing, to give life in a very natural way. It has no natural capacity to confer grace in a supernatural way. God has chosen water to be an instrument of grace in the sacrament of baptism.

Water, in the sacrament of baptism, is the matter which is very important in the celebration of the sacrament. Every valid sacrament has matter and form; which is the sacramentum tantum; that is the pure sign which signifies the invisible grace, the res tantum. …show more content…

Water was the first to produce that which had life, that it might be no wonder in baptism if water knew how to give life….All waters, therefore, in virtue of the pristine privilege of their origin, do, after invocation of God, attain the sacramental power of sanctification; for the Spirit immediately supervenes from the heavens, and rest over the waters, sanctifying them from Himself; and being thus sanctified, they imbibe at the same time the power of sanctifying….They [that] were wont to remedy bodily defects, now heal the spirit; they [that] used to work temporal salvation, now renew …show more content…

St. Paul says: “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?” and so the person who receives baptism dies symbolically and is reborn; one becomes purified and renewed; it mirrors the resurrection of Christ from the tomb. The water of baptism becomes the power of sanctifying grace; it signifies a spiritual cleansing and an entrance into new life because symbolically it washes the soul of the baptized person from every

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